


let's face what we're lookin' at

by birdsofthesoul



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fights, Gratuitous Didion References, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, POV Castiel (Supernatural), Post-Episode: s15e06 Golden Time, Season/Series 15, when talking about your problems only makes them worse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21574345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdsofthesoul/pseuds/birdsofthesoul
Summary: Cas lies there in the den, thinking about that sad sack Clarence Worley fucking things up everywhere he goes, so far up Elvis’s ass he doesn’t know he’s talking to a hallucination. He's got nothing but a string of screw-ups to his name, and yet at the end of the day, his girl Alabama still gasps out in her little-girl murmur:you’re so cool, you’re so cool, you’re so cool.Clarence has no idea how good he’s got it.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	let's face what we're lookin' at

This is the first dream Cas has at the bunker:

He’s barreling down the empty highway, rubber wheels eating up the asphalt and kicking up a dust cloud, and there’s nothing much in the way of scenery, just dead grass stretching on for miles underneath a godless sky. But he’s got the windows rolled down anyway, AC/DC screaming through the heartland, and when he flies down a slope doing ninety, he whoops, electrified, because he’s got Dean riding shotgun like it’s meant to be.

“Careful,” Dean says, and Cas concedes that he’s playing it a little too fast, a little too loose. He’s got a Colt .45 strapped to his thigh and he tends to take his curves wide, so it’s probably best for everyone present that he keeps his eyes on the road, his hands on the wheel, but then he hears Dean laugh, and every thought in his head turns to _Dean, Dean, Dean_. Dean’s grinning, wild, and there’s no doubt in his eyes, no flickering unease or lingering resentment.

It’s not real. He knows this even as he dreams, and when he wakes up on the couch, he doesn’t get up right away. He lies there in the den, thinking about that sad sack Clarence Worley fucking things up everywhere he goes, so far up Elvis’s ass he doesn’t know he’s talking to a hallucination. He's got nothing but a string of screw-ups to his name, and yet at the end of the day, his girl Alabama still gasps out in her little-girl murmur: _you’re so cool, you’re so cool, you’re so cool_.

Clarence has no idea how good he’s got it.

*

Dean’s all cool professionalism when he shows Cas to his room. He doesn’t comment on Cas’s return, he doesn’t ask Cas where he’s been, he doesn’t talk much at all.

He does not walk back any of the things said, or air any grievances that were left unsaid.

But Dean’s mastered the art of the wordless reproach.

A framed replica of Norman Rockwell’s _Breakfast Table_ hangs above the bed in Cas’s new room. The housewife stares blankly out of the painting, disaffected and resigned all at once, the same expression Dean’s wearing right now. He’s standing in the doorway, looking nowhere in particular, and when Cas sets down his duffel, he says in that new detached way he has, “Sam will fill you in on everything you’ve missed.”

“Got it,” Cas says.

“Dinner’s at seven.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Suit yourself.”

There is no big dramatic exit. There is no lingering. Dean leaves without another word, mind already elsewhere in the bunker, and Cas watches him go. _I came back to fight_ , he thinks of saying. He came back to fight for Dean, he came back to fight with Dean. It doesn’t really matter.

Dean is unflappable. Dean does not engage.

After that phone call — after Dean chided him in that lilting tone, like he was speaking to a recalcitrant child, like he hadn’t written Cas out of his life — a scene from John Dunne’s _Vegas_ came to mind. The one where Dunne calls his wife and sends up his white flag. They’ve separated in a last ditch attempt to salvage their marriage, and he’s calling her because a nineteen-year-old wants to suck and fuck him. It’s for a story, the wife says, indifferent. But I don’t _want_ to fuck her, he says. The wife pauses. Well, she says at last, that can also be part of the story.

It doesn’t matter who outdraws whom — Didion’s the one who lands the killing shot.

Dean, Cas thinks, is like the wife. Dean is a Didionesque heroine trapped in Chuck’s pulp novels, which is to say that Dean is paralyzed by the fear that the world he knows has never truly existed, and gripped by another fear that the world is being aborted and rebirthed. Motherhood, it seems, is never far from his mind.

Cas doesn’t understand him. He said as much to Sam when he walked through the door to the bunker, and Sam ran a hand over his face and said, “It’s hard to explain. Chuck ripped off _Angel_ and gave my brother Cordy’s storyline. Dean wasn’t supposed to survive Jack.”

That’s only half of what Sam probably really wanted to say. Cas doesn’t need to be a mind reader to know that Sam sometimes thinks, _you would have chosen Jack over him_. That he looks at Cas and remembers the time Cas would have let Dean die to save Jack’s soul. Cas knows that Sam still carries this grudge — he never lets Cas near Dean anymore.

 _He isn’t supposed to survive you either,_ Cas thinks, but he knows that Dean won’t mind when it comes to Sam. If Dean is the heroine, then Sam is the hero of the story, a gentler John Winchester and the coolest fucking guy in the universe according to Dean. Sam’s the kind of guy who gets multiple wins.

Cas is Clarence Worley, whose one saving grace is that he rescued his girl from her pimp. Take that away — take away Alabama — and what do you have left?

Straight from the horse’s mouth: if Alabama’s lying about her love, then Clarence is gonna fucking die.

*

A few weeks down the line, Dean brings up Idaho. They’re in his room, because Cas has cornered him there, and he’s been sitting on his bed in silence for a while, playing with his phone because neither of them wants to speak first.

“Clarence Worley,” he says at last, thoughtful. “I never pegged you for a Slater fan.”

“I’m not,” Cas says. “It’s just that Clarence Worley has it pretty good. I guess I was hoping his luck would rub off a little on me.”

“He lost an eye,” Dean says. 

“That’s nothing,” Cas says. He’s lost his wings, but he’s still standing. “Worley can’t do a single thing right. He talks to hallucinations of Elvis, he can’t pick up a girl unless she’s been bought and paid for, he even gets his old man killed. He’s a walking disaster, a complete loser. But none of this matters to Alabama, because he saved her once and that’s good enough for her. She doesn’t even care that he’s dumb enough to walk into a drug sting.”

“To be fair,” Dean says, “he couldn’t have known that Elliot would turn coat.”

“And I couldn’t have known what Belphegor had planned down in hell, but you still blame me for Rowena’s death,” Cas says. 

Because that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it?

“I was being unfair,” Dean admits, but he doesn’t elaborate. They both know that he doesn’t blame Cas for Rowena — not entirely. He blames Cas for everything that came before.

“I was in Idaho for the past month,” Cas says. “I was trying to get over you, but I couldn’t because you were everywhere that I went. I fished in the same spot, every day, until the fish stopped taking my bait because they knew I’d be on the other end of the hook. You said you liked fishing, and I wanted to see why you liked it so much. I don’t know why you find it relaxing. It really isn’t. The whole time, I kept wondering if you were right to be mad at me. You never did refute what Michael said, and after everything, I started thinking that he was right. You tolerate me because I saved you from Hell, but you resent me for everything that came afterwards.”

Dean sets down his phone.

“Is that why you’re mad at me? All of the screw-ups — they just kept adding up, until you had enough?”

“That’s not why I’m mad at you,” Dean says sharply. “Although you never did learn from all those screw-ups, did you?”

There is no good answer to that question. But Dean isn’t looking for one. He’s lost that cool poise he’s been affecting ever since Cas stepped foot back into the bunker, and there’s no trace of the listlessness that’s characterized his actions for the past few weeks.

“You let me think the snake died from grief,” Dean says very precisely. “We even had a little funeral for the damn thing, which would have been the time for you to take me aside and tell me that Jack was losing control. But you _bailed_ instead. This isn’t about the _snake_. This is about you leaving me with a troubled kid with superpowers _after_ I told you that I didn’t know what to do. You were his only angelic kin, but you told me that _I_ was responsible for keeping him on the straight and narrow. Why? Because I had done such a great job with Sam the first time around?”

“But you did do a great job with Sam,” Cas says quietly.

“It took _everything_ I had,” Dean says. “And then you wanted me to do it all over again.”

He’s shaking.

“Dean,” Cas says.

“You know,” Dean says, laughing mirthlessly, “you pulled a classic John Winchester on me.”

He falls silent.

Cas watches him from the doorway. He sits on top of his comforter, loosely hugging his knees. His phone lies abandoned on his pillow; he’s staring at his hands, lost in thought, and Cas thinks that he can see him fraying around the edges.

Maria Wyeth in the psychiatric ward comes to mind.

“Dean,” he says again, softly. “I’m gonna go get your brother.”

Dean stirs. “I’m fine,” he says. “Don’t bother Sam.”

“I’m sorry,” Cas offers at length. He doesn’t know what else to say.

“No you’re not,” Dean says wearily. He exhales, and looks up at Cas with eyes like bottomless wells. “You came here to fight,” he says. “So let’s fight.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the musical _Bonnie and Clyde_.


End file.
